[ 4 ]
diences; when thoſe Audiences will hardly ſuffer a Play, that is not interlarded with Singing and Dancing, whereas theſe are become Theatrical Entertainments, without any thing of the Drama, when our People of Quality utterly neglecting Engliſh Comedy and Tragedy, give ſuch Encouragement to Italian Muſick, that if they gave but the like to the proper Entertainments of the Stage, the Engliſh would infallibly excell both Ancients and Moderns.
That this Alteration in the Writers and Audiences is to be aſcrib’d to the Progreſs of Muſick, rather than attributed to any unknown Cauſe, or imputed to Fancy, or the Inconſtancy of the People, we ſhall now very clearly ſhew.
Man is ſo very Fantaſtical a Creature, that perhaps he owes his beſt and his worthieſt Actions to what may be properly called his Weakneſs, that is, to his Vanity, or his Love of Glory. For tho’ that depends upon an Opinion of Excellence, which is almoſt always falſe, and is therefore truly a Weakneſs, yet it gives the Mind a Force, an Elevation and an Enthuſiaſm, which it has not without it, and which make it capable of quite other things than it was before. Now the greater the Action is that any one deſigns, the more is requir’d of ſo impetuous a Motive to execute it; but the writing a Tragedy, or an Epick Poem, being perhaps the greateſt thing that a Man can deſign, and it being impoſſible to ſucceed in Poetry without Enthuſiaſm, the Epick, the Tragick, and indeed all Poets who aſpire to the greater Poetry, have occaſion for ſo enthuſiaſtick a Motive as the Love of Glory; if they write with any other view than to be praiſed, than to be admired, they muſt certainly write contemptibly, nay, they ought to propoſe to themſelves to raiſe their Reputations equal to the firſt of Men, to
place
